


Love Challenged: Starsky-1996

by KimberlyFDR



Series: Snapshots [9]
Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Angst, Disability, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-18
Updated: 2009-11-18
Packaged: 2017-10-03 08:28:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KimberlyFDR/pseuds/KimberlyFDR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I think we can lend a hand and maybe come up with something that you haven't seen yet," Hutch said. "I think between us we can catch this guy. But if you're not willing to work with us, then all we're gonna get is one big headache."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Challenged: Starsky-1996

"This is one sick man," I said, thumbing through the files.

We were barely out of the airport and I was already deep in reading through the files on our latest case. Hutch was trying to navigate our rental car through the afternoon traffic.

"Listen to this. 'The victims have all been found with a wound on their stomach. Visible markings show evidence of a symbol having been carved into the skin.'"

Hutch's face twisted in disgust. "Now I remember why I skipped lunch."

"Isn't Minnesota supposed to be full of white bread, normal people?" I asked, closing the file.

"Times change, so do the crimes." He took a right, heading in the direction of downtown.

"Yeah, but they're getting right down creepy," I shuddered, sticking the file back into the leather briefcase beside my feet.

"Mom asked me three times on the phone about the case. She's been hearing about the deaths on the radio."

"She doing okay?"

"Yeah, I told her we'd be there after we finished up downtown. Anna's bringing Katie over for dinner tonight."

I brightened at that. Even though we were here working a murder investigation, I was still happy that we'd get to spend time with the family. That was one of the reasons we were so willing to take the case, aside from the fact that we were recommended highly by the department.

"How much do you know about the cops working it?" I asked.

"I've only talked to Simmons. She seems okay. Everett's her partner. I don't know much about him." He stopped for the traffic light. "They've been working the case since the second victim, but haven't turned up much yet. Dead ends and very little clues."

"How much they know about us?"

"Heard of us, know we came on request from our department and theirs. That's about it." He started off again.

I watched the traffic go by. We were here to help out, but it was going to be a touchy meeting. The first meeting was always tense when we started on an out of town case. They saw us as invaders on their turf and a lot of times they didn't appreciate us.

"Here goes nothing," Hutch said, pulling into the parking lot of the police station.

I handed him the briefcase before I got out of the car. Taking a deep breath, we headed into the station. The front desk sergeant was on the phone when we got in, so we had to wait. He kept giving us looks as he finished up his conversation.

"Yeah?" he asked, hanging up the phone.

"We're supposed to have a meeting with Detective Simmons and Everett," Hutch explained, showing his credentials.

The guy eyed us up and down. "Hmpf. Third floor, down the hall to your right. They're right inside the door."

Hutch nodded at him before we proceeded towards the elevator. The car was empty when we got on, thankfully. "You ready?" he asked, readjusting the briefcase in his hand.

"Faster we get through this, the faster we can get started."

"You have any ideas?" he asked.

"Not yet. I wanna talk to the investigating officers and see what they think."

"Maybe we'll get the whole thing wrapped up fast and we can spend some time down at the lake," Hutch said, smiling, as the elevator doors opened.

I followed him out into the hall as he started towards the correct room. "After last time, there's no way I'm letting you take me anywhere near there without serious back-up."

"It's not like you hated it," he teased, pushing the bullpen door open.

"Hutch, what part of it was good?" I asked him, keeping pace beside him. "You almost fell off the dock, Katie got poison ivy, and I didn't catch one fish the whole time."

"Yeah, but wasn't it fun?" he laughed, walking towards the desk where a man and woman sat talking.

"You have a very warped idea of fun," I said, pulling up in front of the desk. "And the next time you drag me out to the wilderness, there better be a fully stocked refrigerator and a television."

"You have no sense of adventure."

"Don't tempt me. I'll run you over and let the bears have their way with you," I joked him.

"Gentlemen!" the young woman interrupted us. "Can I help you?"

"See? Your antics are not impressing the lady," Hutch told me before turning his attention to her. "We're looking for Simmons and Everett. The front desk sent us up."

"Do you guys ever stop?" the young man put in, sizing us up. "We're not interested in doing anymore interviews. You want a sound-bite, you go somewhere else."

"I don't think your Captain would much appreciate that," Hutch said, laying his credentials on the desk.

Simmons picked it up and looked, visibly taken aback for a moment. She handed it over to her partner. "You're Hutchinson?"

"That'd be me," he said, taking back the credentials Everett handed back to him.

"And that would make you..." Everett began, looking at me.

"David Starsky," I said, reaching out his hand. "Nice to meet you."

Everett reluctantly shook it while Simmons just stared. "You're not...I mean, we weren't expecting you to be..."

"What? Such good-looking men?" I smiled.

"Starsk, flirting, not helping," Hutch warned.

"You ruin all my fun," I frowned.

"I'm sorry," Simmons said, standing. "We weren't briefed very much on you. Your record was the only thing we had to go by."

"That's some nice bedtime reading," Hutch told her, trying to get her to relax.

"It's varied, I'll say that," Everett put in. "Dana, why don't you go get the files and we'll go to the conference room?"

"Right," she answered, excusing herself.

"Come on," he ordered. "We can talk better in there."

We silently followed him. This guy was a piece of work, we could already tell. I stole a glance at Hutch, but he simply shrugged. We sat down across from him in the conference room.

"They say you're the best," Everett said, looking at us.

"We do our jobs," Hutch said, staring across the table at him.

"We do it well," I added.

"So do we," he answered, frowning. "It wasn't our idea to bring you in."

"Well, you've got us now, so either work with us or you don't, but don't waste our time," I told him.

"You really think you can do any better than us?" He didn't seem convinced of our worth.

"I think we can lend a hand and maybe come up with something that you haven't seen yet," Hutch said. "I think between us we can catch this guy. But if you're not willing to work with us, then all we're gonna get is one big headache."

"We'll see..." he answered, cutting himself off as his partner entered the room.

"I pulled all the case files. They're the same ones we sent over to you before," she said, laying them down on the table.

"Where do you want to start?" Everett asked us.

I sorted through the folders, pulling out the one on the second victim. I opened the folder and stared at a photo of a young woman. "From the beginning. Tell me about her."

"Everything's in the files," Simmons said.

"But I want to know it from you," I told her.

"It's all in the files!" Everett snapped. "Did you even read the damn things?"

"Every one of them!" I bit back. "But I've written a whole lot more of these reports than you ever have, so I know what gets left out. I read what you wrote, now I wanna know what you know."

"From the top," Hutch added.

"What's to say?" Simmons started. "She was in her mid-twenties, killed sometime at night, dumped behind a diner, and found the next morning by the cook."

"Who is she? Where is she from? Give me something here," I begged.

"She's been coming to the diner off and on for the past three weeks. Nobody talked to her, she didn't talk to anybody. The waitress that works there said she was always quiet, never bothered anybody, and that's all there was to it," Everett said.

"How about family? Friends?" Hutch asked.

"We can't find any family, any connections she may have had in town," Simmons responded. "The apartment she was renting was in a low rent part of town and she'd been there for a little over two months. Have no idea how she was getting money, probably on the streets if I had to guess."

"And the carving on her stomach?" I asked, looking closer at the crime scene photo.

"At first we thought it may have been scratches, but now we think it's got a purpose. The same sort of thing was found on the other three girls," she said.

"Tell us about the others," Hutch prodded, taking one of the photos from me so he could get a better look. I pulled the rest of the files towards me.

"Victim number one, druggie and a loner. She wasn't gonna be missed. She was late thirties, had a boyfriend that she lived with. They were known buyers and had been arrested a couple of times before," Simmons responded.

"Did you go back and question the boyfriend yourselves?" I asked, going through the victim's file.

"Of course we did," Everett bit back. "He wouldn't tell us much, but he had an alibi, so we had nothing to hold him on. Then he split town and we haven't heard from him since."

"Third," Hutch pushed, opening up the case file on her.

"Late twenties, good family, engaged to be married. She came from a good home, had a lot of friends, and nobody could think of a reason why she would have been killed," Simmons told us.

"Broke the pattern," I said, looking through the file with Hutch.

"If there ever was one," Everett said. "She didn't frequent the part of town where her body was found, so she was most likely killed somewhere else and dumped there."

"No way she could have had a connection to the previous two?" Hutch asked.

"Not a chance. She never broke the law, she was respected in her job, and she was headed for a marriage that would put her financially well off for the rest of her life," Simmons told us.

"And you don't know much about your fourth yet?" I questioned.

"We're still working on her," Simmons sighed. "She was seventeen, about to graduate school soon. She had just come into town for a college visit and was supposed to fly back to Georgia the next day. She never made it. Gardener found her behind one of the dorms."

"How about her family? Friends?"

"She's got a mother back home, but that's about it. She was an only child, not a social butterfly in school," Everett responded.

"So he's killing young women, but expanding his age range. He's getting more daring and going for girls that have social ties, even limited ones." I flipped through the last victim's file. "Killed, dumped, not found before morning."

"He's marking them, making it known that it was him doing the killings," Hutch said, looking closer at the photograph he still held. "Do you have blow-ups of the marks?"

Everett reached into the back of the file and pulled out an enlarged photograph for Hutch to look at. Looking at them, even I would think they were scratches at first glance. They were hastily done marks, but it definitely meant something.

"Can we take a set of these photographs with us? Look them over and work on it tonight?" I asked.

"Got a duplicate set for you right here," Simmons offered, holding up an envelope. "Crime scene, body shots, blow-ups. Everything we got, it's here."

"Thanks." Hutch took the envelope and stuck it in the briefcase. "We'll go through the files, look over the cases again, see if anything stands out. Tomorrow we can start fresh, go over anything we found, and hopefully make some head-way on it." He took one of his cards out of the briefcase, turning it over and writing a phone number on the back. "This is the number where we can be reached. Call us if something happens before we get back tomorrow."

"Thanks," Simmons said, taking the card. "I mean, we've been through every lead we've had and nothing's turned up. Maybe a fresh pair of eyes on this thing will help."

"That's the plan," I put in, backing away from the table.

Hutch followed me out, making our way towards the elevators again. Simmons and Everett stayed behind, probably talking about us as soon as we left. That's what we'd do, if we were in their shoes.

"That was...tolerable," Hutch said, punching the elevator button.

"Hey, at least one of them's on our side," I pointed out. "Everett's just blowing off steam. We did the same thing before. Give him a day or two, he'll cool off."

"Maybe," Hutch responded, not sounding too sure.

We got on the elevator and rode down to the first floor. The case, the officers, the whole situation was going to be hard going, but I didn't want to think about any of that now. Right now, I wanted to focus on a couple of hours of vacation before we started work.

The drive out to the house wasn't bad. The traffic had let up a little while we were in the station, so Hutch made good time. Pulling up in front of the house, I could see that both Maggie and Richard's cars were at home, but Anna hadn't gotten there yet. As we went up to the kitchen door, I saw something else. Richard's car had a scratch running down the passenger side door. It wasn't big, but definitely noticeable.

"What do you think happened to your dad's car?" I motioned over to the offending scratch.

Hutch shrugged. "He didn't say anything to me. Must've just happened."

"Your mom's gonna kill him if she hasn't already."

Hutch grinned as he knocked on the door. Surprisingly, Richard it. He smiled wide and reached his arms towards Hutch.

"I thought you two would never get here," he laughed. He turned towards me, giving a firm handshake. "What took you so long?"

"We had to pick up some casework downtown. Mom told you, didn't she?"

"Eh, she might of." He waved it off, bringing us into the kitchen. "She's been telling me things all day, sending me half-way round the world getting her stuff for dinner."

"Uh, yeah...." I began. "We saw your car."

"Mom didn't say you had scratched it."

"She doesn't know," he whispered, his eyes widening. "Whatever you do, don't tell your mother. I was planning on sneaking it over to the body shop before dinner tonight to get it fixed."

"What'd you do, Richard?" I asked.

"Had a slight disagreement with a tree," he coughed. "The tree won."

"Are you okay?" I was concerned he might have done some damage to something other than the paint job.

"Oh, I'm fine. I just got too close to the curb and the paint job didn't hold up."

Hutch started laughing and pointing at me. "You've been in this family so long, your bad driving habits are even rubbing off on them."

"Hey, once he starts doing a reverse 180, then we'll talk. This is nothing."

"Richard!" Maggie's voice called out from deeper in the house. "Who was at the door?"

"Some drifters, say they know you," he called back. He smiled at us. "What's the point if I can't have a little fun now and then?" He lowered his voice. "Remember, not a word."

"Who did you say it..." She came into the kitchen, immediately seeing who it was. "Ken! David!" She rushed over and started hugging Hutch. She looked over at her husband. "Richard! You should be ashamed of yourself, telling me such nonsense."

He just shook his head, defeated. Maggie was going non-stop, as she's apt to do every time we come for a visit. It was really very cute in a way. Then again, she was like a tornado sometimes.

"I haven't even finished dinner yet. You must be tired. Where's your bags? Richard, did you get their bags yet? How're you doing? You look tired. Was the plane ride okay? No traffic on the way over here?"

"Mom....Mom!" Hutch yelled, trying to get her attention. He laughed at her. "Take a breath and calm down. We just got here, we're fine, and the bags are still in the car."

"Well, I was only asking," she said, leaning down to give me a kiss. "Did you finish everything you needed downtown?"

"Yeah and you've got me for the rest of the night." I smiled at her.

"Or until Katie gets here," she responded. "I think we've got everything almost ready for dinner."

"Don't need anything else from the store?" Richard asked, needing a reason to get out of the house.

"No, I think you got everything. It'll be another hour before Anna and Katie get here and the dinner's ready, but I think we're set on food."

"Oh," he sighed. There went his excuse to get to the garage.

"Dad, can you drive me over to the library for a little while?" Hutch put in.

I looked at him, questioning. I knew he was trying to get his dad out of the house and down to the garage without raising suspicion, but the library?

"The case," he said simply.

"Ah, yeah."

"I thought you boys weren't going to work the rest of the day?" Maggie frowned.

"Just a little while, Mom. We'll be back in time for dinner, I promise. And don't worry about the bags, we'll get them when we get back."

Richard seemed pleased at his son's ingenuity. They got out the door and I heard the car pull out of the driveway with Maggie being none the wiser. I rolled over to the table, keeping a watch on Maggie's actions. She was shuffling around the kitchen, checking on dinner.

"I wish you and Ken didn't have to work through vacation," she said, closing the oven door after a final check. She looked over, catching me snacking on a piece of bread. "David!" She started shaking her head. "You're as bad as Katie, sneaking food before dinner."

"I can't help it," I said between bites. "I'm hungry. We didn't have anything edible on the plane and Hutch didn't think we had time before our meeting to get anything."

"Well...just don't spoil your dinner."

"Yes, Mom." I smiled at her.

She came over to join me at the table after one last check on the food. Maggie was getting slower, older, but she still had that sparkle of mischief in her eye that made her special. I loved her like she was my own mother and she loved me as much as Hutch. It was always a special time when we could visit with one another.

"So you're really investigating those poor girls getting killed?" she asked.

"Supposed to, yeah."

"It's just so scary, hearing about it." She frowned, looking at me. "And I worry about you two."

"Maggie," I said, reaching for her hand. "You don't have to worry about us anymore. We're safe, I promise. The worst we deal with now is eyestrain and paper cuts." I smiled at her, trying to reassure.

"You and Ken got hurt on that other case last year," she reminded me.

She had me there. "Yeah, well, that was a stupid mistake and not something we're gonna do again. Besides, I don't think these Minnesota cops would much like us sticking our noses in."

"You just promise you'll be careful."

"I promise," I said, leaning in and giving her a kiss on the cheek.

I helped her finish cooking, sampling along the way. She kept casting me warning glances, but I could see the amusement behind it. Hutch got his cooking skills from Maggie, as I learned long ago. The Hutchinson technique of cuisine had served me well over the years.

We had just gotten settled in the living room when I heard a car pull up. Maggie peeked outside and confirmed that it was indeed Anna.

"Katie's breaking her neck trying to get in here," Maggie laughed.

"Katherine Ann!" Anna's voice called from outside. "Slow down!"

"But Mommy," Katie whined.

"Wait for me or we're going home," Anna sternly told her. It must've worked because Katie quieted down. There was a knock on the door and I motioned to Maggie that I'd get it.

"Who is it?" I yelled out.

"Uncle Starsky!" Katie squealed.

"Nobody by that name here. Try the next house."

"Uncle Starsky," she tried again, a slight whine creeping into her voice.

I gave in and opened the door. I couldn't stand to hear her sad. "Well, if you're gonna..." I didn't get to finish my sentence before she attached herself to me and started hugging.

"Uncle Starsky, Uncle Starsky!"

"Don't you know any other words?" I teased.

"I missed you," she said, kissing me.

"I missed you, too, Katie-Bear." I hugged her back before letting her go. She stepped back, beaming. Then she spotted Maggie. "Grandma!" She shot across the room towards her.

"How about me?" Anna asked, leaning down to smile at me. "Did you miss me, too?"

"How could I not miss my favorite sister-in-law?"

"I'm your only sister-in-law," she pointed out, hugging me.

"See? Extra-special."

"Where's Ken?" she asked, not noticing him in the room.

"Your dad took him over to the library." At her quizzical look I explained, "Case stuff."

The short explanation seemed to satisfy her. She directed her attention to Maggie. "How're you, Mom?" She went over to give her mother a hug.

"Fine, fine. And as soon as Ken and your father get back we'll have a nice dinner." She looked over at me. "How long's it take to go to the library anyway?"

"Maybe there was traffic?" I tried, lamely.

"Maybe," she shrugged it off. "Anna, come help me set the table for dinner."

The women excused themselves so Katie and I could spend some time together. As I watched her sit down on the couch, I could see how much she had changed. She had grown so much since the last time I saw her, which was at her birthday party. Nine years old and I still remembered the first time I held her. She wasn't that tiny little baby anymore.

"I hope Uncle Ken and Grandpa gets here soon. I'm starving," she complained.

That was my niece, appetite and all. "Me, too. Your Uncle Ken wouldn't let me stop for lunch this afternoon."

"Mommy says you're working this time."

"A little, but that doesn't mean we can't still have fun. We're gonna take you out this weekend and do something."

"The lake?"

My face fell. "Do you really wanna go to the lake?"

"No, not really," she apprehensively answered. "I didn't like it when I got itchy last time."

"No lake."

"Zoo?"

"Hey, that'd be nice," I agreed.

"We learned about some of the animals in school," she boasted. "I know all about the elephants and the lions and....What's your favorite?"

"I like the monkeys." I grinned.

"Uncle Ken says you act like a monkey," she giggled.

"Your Uncle Ken acts like an ostrich a lot of times, so we're a matched set."

She laughed at me. "Uncle Ken is clumsy."

"But we love him anyway, don't we?"

"Sure do," she beamed. Then it looked like she was trying to formulate a question, her face contorting in consideration. "Uncle Starsky?"

"Hmm?"

"Sara's mom said I shouldn't call you my uncle."

"What?" my voice cracked.

"She said you're not really my uncle, not like Uncle Ken, because you're not related to me. She said that I can't have two uncles because it's unnatural."

"Unnatural?" I repeated, not really understanding how I was going to explain this.

"Yeah, she said that two men couldn't be in love."

"What....what do you think about that?"

"I think Sara's mom is mean and she's wrong." Katie frowned. "I yelled at her that you were my uncle, just like Uncle Ken. She didn't like that. She sent me home and told me I wasn't to talk back to my elders." She paused, coming over to my arms. "Uncle Starsky? Why doesn't she think you and Uncle Ken love each other? She doesn't even know you."

"I don't know Katie-Bear," I said, hugging her tight. "Some people don't understand what love is."

"I know you love Uncle Ken and he loves you. And I still love you."

"I love you, too, baby."

I stayed with her in my arms for a few minutes, just holding her. A little girl should not have to be exposed to such hatred in her life, especially since it was not her fault. I loved her more than anything and I hated seeing her hurt because of what Hutch and I had.

I finally released her. "Come on, let's go see if Grandma will give us some kind of snack while we wait for Grandpa and Uncle Ken to get back."

She happily followed after me, rejoining the rest of the family in the kitchen. We started sneaking rolls while we waited, much to Maggie's disapproval. She sent Anna and I out to get the bags from the car, like it would head off any more snacking. It didn't, however. Hutch and Richard finally showed up half an hour later, pretending like there was nothing going on. Hutch greeted his sister and niece with one-armed hugs, balancing the briefcase in the other. He excused himself before dinner so he could drop off the briefcase in our room. I followed him, hoping to catch up on what he found out.

"Your dad's car okay?" I asked, following him through the bedroom door.

"Touched up. Still there, but mom's not gonna notice." He lay the briefcase on the desk by the door.

"Good thing for your dad," I laughed. "Anna and I already brought our suitcases in from the car," I told him, nodding towards the pile in the corner.

"Oh?" He glanced over. "Oh, thanks."

"Your mom didn't know what had happened to you. Thought we'd have to start dinner without you."

"Library. I took a long time pulling books and making copies."

"What'd you find out?" I asked him.

"Those scratches?" he began, taking out a sheet of paper. "They're really symbols and they really do mean something."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yep," he said, pulling out a copy of a mark that looked very similar to the ones found on the victims. "The symbol is called Otto."

"Otto? And it means?"

"It's the Japanese word for husband."

"Husband?" I questioned, unbelieving.

"That's right," he sighed. "He's marking these girls as his property with a word."

"Husband?" I repeated again, trying to remember why the word was nagging at my brain. "Hand me the crime scene photos for a minute." Hutch pulled them out of the briefcase and turned them over to me, waiting for whatever conclusion I was building up to. Flipping through the close-ups, I began to figure it out. I turned over the photograph of the fourth victim to him. "Look at that picture and tell me what you see."

He studied it for a minute. "Young girl, wounded, clothes torn, beaten."

I showed him victims one and two. "How about these?"

"Same thing. Wound on their stomachs, clothes torn, obviously beaten."

I shook my head. "Look at their hands."

He looked closer at the pictures. "Rings." Then it dawned on him. He looked up at me. "Wedding rings? I thought none of these girls were married."

"They weren't. Victim number three was engaged, so it was normal for her to be wearing something on her wedding finger, but none of the other ones were engaged or married. The fourth one was only seventeen, no boyfriend or anybody."

"So he's..."

"Marrying them," I told him. "He's marking them as his wives."

"This guy's warped."

"Is that your professional opinion?"

"Warped and sick," he added.

"Well at least it gives us something to go on." I put the papers and photos back on the desk. "I'll work up something on him after dinner, show it to Simmons and Everett tomorrow."

"One more peaceful night?"

"Enjoy it," I told him, turning back towards the door. "It might be our last for a long time."


End file.
